October 2020 Business Inventories Grew
Headlines say final business sales data (retail plus wholesale plus manufacturing) improved month-over-month. The rolling averages improved. Inventories remain somewhat elevated.
Analyst Opinion of Business Sales and Inventories
This data is worse than the previous month.
Our primary monitoring tool - the 3-month rolling averages for sales - improved. As the monthly data has significant variation, the 3-month averages are the way to view this series.
Econintersect Analysis:
unadjusted sales (but inflation-adjusted) up 0.6 % year-over-year
unadjusted sales three-month rolling average compared to the rolling average 1 year ago accelerated 0.6 % month-over-month, and is up 0.4 % year-over-year.
unadjusted business inventory s growth rate accelerated 0.9 % month-over-month (